


Paying for My Mistake

by devovere



Series: Smooch, Screw, or Slay? Tumblr ficlets [3]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Anger, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hypocrisy, Infidelity, Light Bondage (fantasized), Long Live Feedback Comment Project, POV First Person, Rough Sex, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 01:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14801837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere
Summary: Years ago, Owen Paris made a selfish and short-sighted choice. He is still paying the price, and no one else knows.





	Paying for My Mistake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Helen8462](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helen8462/gifts).



> Part of the [Smooch, Screw, or Slay?](https://devoverest.tumblr.com/post/174132926227/smooch-screw-or-slay) game I created on Tumblr to celebrate my two-hundred-fiftieth follower. 
> 
> This story is something of an homage to aspects of Kathryn Janeway’s character and leadership style that I think she may have learned from Owen Paris. I borrow certain key phrases from the episode “Night,” written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky. The story also contains spoilers for the novel _Mosaic_ by Jeri Taylor. 
> 
> Warmest thanks to R_S_B for skilled and careful beta-reading and for her own wonderful stories about this pairing.

At first, of course, it was about Tom. 

No, that’s not precisely true. 

For the past year and more, it’s been about Julia’s grief for our boy, lost for good this time. 

_ For good _ .  _ This time _ . 

My shame at his mistakes still speaks through me. He was lost to us before, but never for anything good. First the accident and lies, the dishonorable discharge. Then years when he drifted, doing God knows what. And all culminating in his arrest and conviction for treason. 

Generations of esteemed Starfleet service behind our family name, ending not with my retirement -- that would have been bad enough -- but with my only son a traitor and a felon. 

He spent months right here on Earth, a transport away in Auckland, but I never visited. Julia did, and his sisters, but I wouldn’t. 

_ Voyager _ was meant to be his first step toward redemption. It was what I could do for him. What I’d let myself do. 

Julia knows I pulled strings to get him on that mission. She knows it was my way of trying, at long last, to help him. She doesn’t even blame me for his death. Starfleet to the core, she has always known the risks. 

But she mourns, of course, and I have put her grief first, not feeling entitled to my own. Because of my fraught relationship with my son, yes. But also … because of Kathryn. 

\-----

I never thought of Kathryn inappropriately when I taught or commanded her. She was my subordinate, and more than that, my protégé, reliant on my guidance and support for career advancement. I’ve never taken sexual advantage of someone under my command. Protocol and my own moral code forbid it. 

On the  _ Icarus _ , after our shared ordeal, a liaison almost would have made sense. She was just an ensign at the time, but she was the only person on the ship who had any inkling what I’d been through. I was in such a bad way that I doubt Julia would even have minded my seeking comfort where I could find it. 

When Kathryn sought me out after our rescue, I thought I saw a hint of suggestion in her eyes. Of willingness. She was worried about me. She cared for me. She wanted to help me. But I was her captain. 

I sent her to Tighe instead, knowing what would happen between them. 

It was the right thing to do. Even with how that ended for her, I know I did the right thing that day. 

\-----

By chance, Kathryn was with me, preparing for her first post-mission review as captain of the  _ Bonestell _ , when I was called away by the news that Tom had been injured on Caldik Prime. She’d often heard me speak of him, always with pride in his accomplishments, his potential. She messaged me that night, and I was able to reassure her and Gretchen that Tom would recover, although three of his shipmates had died, including the one he said had caused the accident. 

A week later, Kathryn stopped by after hours to see me. I think she wanted to complain about being saddled with that Vulcan tactical officer who had embarrassed her during her review. She didn’t report to me and knew I had no power to change Admiral Finnegan’s decision, but she also knew I’d butted heads with McGeorge myself over the years and would at least pour her a drink in sympathy.  

She had no idea she’d find me in such a state. 

Because by then I knew the truth.

He’d  _ lied _ . Tom had lied about the accident, to me, to Starfleet. He’d falsified his report, betrayed his oath. 

Then he’d confessed to me. Putting me in the same position, expecting me to lie to protect him. 

And I had turned him in. Knowing it meant the end of his career. 

I couldn’t recall ever being so angry. There were even moments when I felt it would have been better for everyone if Tom had died too. 

Looking back on it now, I am appalled at my own arrogance, thinking that I could know what that even meant. 

I couldn’t go to Julia for solace or understanding. She was preoccupied with Tom’s needs. Some part of me, I think, knew that she was furious with me. Some part of me knew I deserved it. It was the first time in thirty years of marriage that I resented my wife’s devotion to one of our children. 

That was how Kathryn came to find me drinking alone in my office. 

And I suppose that’s how we ended up on the couch together. 

And again at her apartment, that weekend. 

\-----

Kathryn was cheating too, on her new lover. He was away a lot -- worked in South America, I think. We both had to be discreet. It only lasted a few weeks before she shipped out again. 

By then Tom had recovered from his injuries, been scrubbed out of Starfleet, and left Earth for parts unknown. Heartbroken, Julia remembered that she had a husband. Maybe I had just needed her to need me to pick up the pieces. Or maybe I really couldn’t have been there for her with Tom still between us. 

Staying married was the right thing to do and I’ve never regretted it. 

The affair with Kathryn was -- and remains -- the only infidelity of my life. 

\-----

It ended our mentoring relationship, of course. I regretted that deeply, but it was an inevitable consequence of our impropriety. I told myself that I’d seen Edward Janeway’s daughter all the way through her first captaincy and that she was doing just fine without my guidance. She must have understood without being told, for she never sought it -- or me -- again. 

On the contrary, when our paths finally crossed again, five years later, it was I who went to her for help. 

For Tom. 

I’d had a hand in planning  _ Voyager _ ’s maiden mission, and I’d made damn sure from a distance that Kathryn was in the captain’s seat. All of that was above board, no less than her due. This was no  _ quid pro quo _ arrangement, and when we met I made that clear. I was asking her for a personal favor. 

“Please,” I said. “Please help me help my son.” 

She asked very few questions and raised -- along with that memorable eyebrow of hers -- only one objection. 

“Shouldn’t you be the one to ask him if he’ll go?” 

The question violated professional courtesy. A subordinate -- a mentee -- wouldn’t have dared what it implied: judging my parenting; suspecting me of emotional cowardice. It was a question only an old family friend could ask. Or a lover. 

Memories of our long-ago intimacy crashed through the walls I’d carefully constructed over the years. Holding my gaze, she saw it all -- my resentment and shame, my need. 

Before I could say anything we’d surely both regret, she gave a sharp shake of her head, releasing me from answering her question. 

“Yes, Admiral, I’d be happy to take Tom on as an observer.” She picked up the PADD I’d brought. “I’ll read his file tonight and then beam over to Auckland to speak with him.” 

My throat closed. I told myself firmly that it was gratitude for her kindness. 

“Thank you, Captain,” I said, when I could speak. 

She had kept her desk between us throughout this meeting. We did not shake hands on parting. 

\-----

That one meeting dragged our long-ago affair into my mind in ways I found disturbing. 

After Tom’s accident, when I’d succumbed to temptation, I’d been coming apart at the seams, with nowhere else to land. I didn’t have that excuse this time. Julia and I were back on an even keel. Tom’s future looked brighter than it had in years; he’d never be allowed to rejoin Starfleet, but we were optimistic he’d be released early and with better prospects after helping the Federation capture a Maquis vessel and bring another traitor to justice. 

Julia came home so happy after seeing Tom to his shuttle. Her boy was back in uniform -- albeit without rank or office -- and off on a mission. Her joy made her light-hearted. I could tell she was pleased with me for the part I had played in getting him furloughed. 

It was almost like forgiveness, but for a wrong she didn’t know I had done her. 

She took me to bed, and I loved her as well as I could. Still, in our throes I couldn’t trust myself to answer her cries of “Owen!” with her name. Kathryn’s was in my head again. 

That was when I realized that although the affair had been short-lived and was long over I would never be done deceiving my wife. 

\-----

That first time with Kathryn, late at night on the couch in my office, we talked. Well, I talked. 

The sex only happened between the talking. 

Maybe the talking was the true infidelity. 

I told her things I should have said only to Julia, my life partner and co-parent. I told her things  _ about  _ Julia, blaming my wife -- in my foolish, selfish agony of shame -- for how she’d raised our boy, conveniently ignoring that it was my choices, my priorities, that had left her to do so largely alone for most of his childhood. 

That first night, Kathryn made understanding noises. Offered gestures of sympathy, the solace of her arms, and her sweet slender body. 

Our later trysts were an escape from my ongoing domestic ordeal. She never asked and I didn’t offer much information. When we talked, we reminisced about bygone days or spoke about her career prospects or the challenges of command. I enjoyed those moments, trading stories from the big chair, debating strategy as peers. 

There was only one more conversation about Tom and what his lies had done to me. I don’t recall how it came up or what I said, exactly. But I vividly remember Kathryn, pushing her auburn hair back from her face, saying, “I would have died before I’d disappointed my father like that.” 

It was late at night. We’d spent the evening together, ending up in her bathtub, and were now enjoying a new bottle of bourbon in matching bathrobes, pretending that it didn’t matter that mine bore another man’s monogram. 

Her hair was still damp and she wore no makeup. It made her look even younger, and her eyes were large in her face, somber and sincere but suddenly conveying something I should have seen before. 

Kathryn identified with Tom in this, not with me. 

Of  _ course _ . Of course she couldn’t understand how I felt. She had no children of her own, was still quite young herself. She was, in fact, much closer in age to my son than she was to me. I’d known this rationally but suddenly I knew it in my marrow, in the hot pulse of my blood. 

I stared at her and thought, “She looks at me and thinks of her father.” 

It sickened me that this aroused me. It angered me. 

Her blue eyes gazed back at me, unaware of how much they reminded me of Tom in that moment. 

My eyes. My son. He had lied. I was lying. 

I was a hypocrite. 

I took her on her dining table, still in her robe. I was rough with her, more than I’d ever been with anyone. I wanted to punish her. For making me feel old, for using me to work out her own grief, for having blue eyes. 

For letting me fuck her when I should have been with my family. 

I held her down with a fist in her hair, driving into her from behind. I watched her hands scrabble on the glass tabletop, hindered by the thick fabric twisted around her, unable to find purchase against the leverage I had on her body. 

I fantasized about using the soft belt of her robe to tie those hands behind her. I imagined wrapping my own belt around her throat and pulling steadily back as I fucked her. 

She moaned and clenched around me, rigid and trembling. I gave her hair a jerk as I came. 

\-----

That wasn’t our last time together, but nearly, and after that I was careful to avoid drinking much and to let her take the lead in bed. I had encountered a self I didn’t wish to know and refused to meet again. If she wondered where my more aggressive side had gone, she didn’t ask me. She was leaving, very soon, and we both knew it was time to wind things down. 

I could not in good conscience fault Kathryn for her part in our affair. She had been there when I needed her. Not just as a warm and willing body. She was a former student, former crew. Former fellow prisoner, a witness to my own torture, the point at which I broke, and broke, and broke again. 

She’d known me well enough to see that I couldn’t cope alone. And that I was in fact alone in facing the ramifications of my choice to once again put Starfleet duty ahead of family, ahead of love. 

When we said goodbye, I was more tender than she was. She was preoccupied with the thousand details involved with taking the  _ Bonestell _ back out to deep space. She all but pushed me out the door in her haste to deliver her dog to Gretchen in Indiana. When I got her attention with a hand under her chin, her gaze was amused, with something shuttered in her expression. 

“You be well, Owen,” she said, removing my hand from her face and giving it a warm squeeze. I was dismissed. 

I’m sure I told her to be careful. I’m sure I thanked her and kissed her with passion. But what I remember is the clear sense that she was moving on with her life and leaving me behind. As, indeed, she was … five years before we all lost her for good. 

\-----

I spent the first fourteen months after  _ Voyager _ vanished consoling Julia and using everything I have to keep the search alive. She was devastated, and so I’ve had to be strong. Sympathetic colleagues soon became reluctant to support the search. It’s not personal to them, and war is looming. I’ve had to remain both optimistic and fierce in my advocacy. 

Last week at dinner, Julia asked me if I knew what day it was. I said it was Thursday. She smiled sadly and said, “It’s the last day of Tom’s sentence.” 

The food turned to sand in my mouth, to lead in my stomach. 

She sat and watched me absorb the significance of her words. 

I struggled for a minute and then once again found comforting optimism for her. “Well. Good. When he returns, there won’t be any question that he’ll come home instead of going back to Auckland.” 

Her smile remained, practiced, while her eyes filled with tears. Both, I realized, were for me. 

“Owen,” she said. Just that. Just my name. 

My denial shattered along with my pretense. The brave face I’d been putting on the situation had never been for her benefit. It had been for mine. 

\-----

I’d meant for Kathryn, on  _ Voyager _ , to offer Tom a path toward redemption. All I did was get my son killed. If I hadn’t meddled, had let him serve out the sentence that shamed our family name, he’d have been home by now, months before Starfleet will finally declare  _ Voyager _ ’s crew lost and presumed dead. 

I can only hope that they  _ are  _ all dead. Cardassia is the only power in the vicinity with the resources to hide a ship and crew that size. They could be imprisoned. Undergoing torture. 

I can’t bear to think of my boy that way. I rationalize. He’s a nobody now. They would leave him alone, focus on the senior officers -- 

Which means that I imagine Kathryn instead, screaming in agony, helpless to protect her crew, wondering why rescue never came. Thinking I’ve abandoned her. 

Thanks to my own short-sighted and selfish choice five years ago, I will never be able to grieve for my son without also mourning the woman for whom I betrayed his mother, and vows of my own. 

And beneath it all … Kathryn remains. Secret and -- to my shame and torment -- unforgettable. 

**Author's Note:**

> Helen8462 (jhelenoftrek) gave me the prompt:
>
>> 48: "We loved in secret. You died." But maybe more of a "We screwed in secret. You died." You guessed it: KJ/Owen Paris :-)
> 
> Series canon and the novel _Mosaic_ tell different stories of Tom Paris’s fateful accident. I’ve used the canon version, which happened at Caldik Prime early in his Starfleet career, but kept certain details from Mosaic, namely placing Kathryn in Owen’s office when he got the news of his son’s injuries.
> 
> Canon is vague on most details of Kathryn’s pre-Voyager career as well as on the timeline of Tom Paris’s post-accident, pre-Maquis life and whereabouts. I’ve chosen to put five years between his accident (and the end of Janeway’s first captaincy) and Voyager’s mission to the Badlands. It’s a nice round number and I figure it gives everyone involved plenty of time to do what needed to be done between the two events. Likewise, I’ve massaged the characters’ ages relative to one another for maximum effect: I think Kathryn is about seven years older than Tom and close to twenty-five years younger than Owen. At the time of their affair, she is around thirty years old. 
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. I invite and appreciate feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * <3 as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta) may be a useful resource for some. 
> 
> I reply to comments. That means you can expect me to reply to your comment, eventually and barring unforeseen circumstances. (Once in a while I miss or don't receive a notification, for example.) 
> 
> If you _don’t_ want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper.” I will appreciate it but not respond.


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